Maker’s Diary: Picking up Momentum

Right! I have done quite a few bits and bobs today to get things off the ground for the final round of experiments. I sent the following e-mail to Richard Ryan today to see if there is any possibility of getting an off campus public performance too:

Hi Richard

I hope that this e-mail is finding you well. I am in the process of re-working Siren Song to be a durational piece; it will be performed on the 22nd Oct 07 at a space in Winchester University (exact details still to be confirmed). I wanted to give you a heads up, so that you can pop the date in your diary.

I also wanted to ask another quick question. I am looking to take the work to a venue outside of the university but have run very low on budget now; I was wondering if you were perhaps aware of any local performance spaces that are (free) or very cheap within the Winchester area?

I look forward to hearing from you

Best wishes

Joanna Bucknall

I also made initial contact with David Buss to start up commxs on the tech side of things:

Hi David

I hope that this e-mail is finding you well.

For various reasons (mostly because I did not get the data I needed for my research), I am re-working Siren Song and have been allocated the Arts Centre Monday 22nd October from 10am - 5pm. It will not be a ticketed event, so I do not need to worry about a duty manager; however, I will require a certain amount of tech support. I really just wanted to check that this will be possible for this date?

I will pre-pare a risk assessment form and a tech drive in due course. I would really appreciate it if you could let me know asap if that is going to be okay as well as if you need anything further from me. I am now fairly familiar with that space, so don't really need to come and have a look around. The only major tech requirement is that I need the space free of the fixed seating bank. Since the space is usually without this, I am going to assume that will not be too much of an issue.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes

Joanna Bucknall

I now feel very re-freshed after my trip and have spent some time developing the new concept and structure of the performance:

SIREN SONG-Re Worked

Premise

It is HER party; hats, food and drink but SHE never appears. The performers will play games and give speeches endlessly for 6 hours, like they are stuck in a time warp, destined to repeat them selves over and over but with nothing ever being the same twice. Through, games, tasks and repetition, the audience and performers will work together to piece together HER, to generate the missing SHE; endless possibilities will play out and be generated over a 6 hour period. Who is She, What is your relationship with HER?

Outline

This will be a durational piece of work that will last approx 6 hours. The audience will be able to come and go as they please, moving freely through the space. There will also be a diary booth that the performers will take individual audience members into throughout in order to record their thoughts about their experience.

The work will consist of 2 overriding structures that will marshal the activity of both the performers and the audience. The structure will last for approx 2 hours and will be repeated 3 times.

Much of this will be developed through a devising process, so it is difficult to be particularly specific at this stage about the structures that will marshal this work.

There will be two main things going on: Speeches and Games. I am hoping that there will be many speeches and 3 games. I have already decided on two games but everything else will have to be discovered through the devising process.

The games that I have already taking a liking too are: pass the parcel and truth or tape.

Pass the Parcel- There will be objects hidden in each layer, things such as keys, etc. Each object will have a little tag attached with a question on it asking the winner to tell us something about how the object relates to her. So for example they key might have a tag that says ‘tell us about when she gave this back to him’ and the winner of that layer will have to do exactly that!

Truth or Tape- this is just like truth or dare, in stead of a dare the participants of the game will be able to pull a tape out of a bag and play it. The tapes will have many different things on them, all about HER life or taken from her life. So it could be a phone message, a piece of dialogue etc. If they choose truth then they will have to tell us something about her.